NEW! By Barry Rubin

“There have been many hundreds of books for and against Israel but no volume presenting the essential information about its domestic politics, its society, as well as its cultural life and its economy. This gap has now been filled.”—Walter Laqueur, author of A History of Zionism

"[An] essential resource for readers interested in learning the truth about the Zionist project in the 20th and 21st centuries."—Sol Stern, Commentary

“Offering in-depth perspectives with encyclopedic breadth on the makeup of the Jewish state, focusing only briefly on Israel's struggle for self-preservation. The section "History" provides a masterful summary of Israel's past from its socialist beginnings before independence to the modern struggles with the Iranian regime. . . .”—Publishers Weekly

“A well-written portrait of a vibrant nation at the center of turmoil in the region.”—Jay Freeman, Booklist

"It is indeed just a starting point, but Israel: An Introduction, if disseminated among our universities to the extent it deserves, will at least allow students of the Middle East and of Jewish history to start off on the right foot. A glimpse into the real Israel may do more for the future of U.S.-Israeli relations than any amount of rhetoric ever could."—Daniel Perez, Jewish Voice New York

Written by a leading historian of the Middle East, Israel is organized around six major themes: land and people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. The only available volume to offer such a complete account, this book is written for general readers and students who may have little background knowledge of this nation or its rich culture.

About Me

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. See the GLORIA/MERIA site at www.gloria-center.org.

One of the many distortions written about Israel during this
latest Israel-Hamas war is that the Israeli government was motivated to act by
the fact that elections in Israel are being held on January 22. In other words,
the motive is attributed to partisan rather than defensive motives. While this
is only one of many inaccurate claims, it is a good illustrative example of how ignorance and
malice combine in constructing an artificial picture of Israel.

First, by attributing the war to internal politics the
actual motive is made to disappear. The most common distortion on Israel’s
behavior in the Gaza Strip has been to ignore the main factor shaping it. If it
were not for persistent cross-border attacks, Israel would never intervene
militarily inside the Gaza Strip at all.

Even at the best of times, rockets and mortars are fired
into Israel from the Gaza Strip and there are attempts at cross-border attacks,
both against soldiers on the border and deep-penetration terrorist operations
against civilians. These are often carried out by smaller groups like Islamic
Jihad and a range of Salafist and al-Qaida affiliated organization.

Hamas likes to maintain the pretense, helped by some in the
West, that the Hamas regime has no responsibility for these events. In fact,
though, they act with its tacit permission and at times its active assistance. When
such groups do anything directly against Hamas’s interests, they are quickly
and ruthlessly repressed. When they attack Israel supposedly against the
preference of Hamas, the regime does nothing.

If the Israeli military campaign was in response to events
on the ground, events initiated by Hamas, it was not conditioned by forthcoming
elections. But if elections are given as the cause, it can be claimed that
Israel had no reasonable motive and no need to go to war.

In the current situation, as in late 2008 when the last war
erupted, a simple statistical study shows two conditions existed. One was a
steep increase in the different categories of attacks; the other was Hamas’s
open participation in the operations. A turning point that brought about this
war was the firing of far more rockets than “normal” and a series of
cross-border attacks. The last one, in which an anti-tank rocket destroyed an army
jeep and wounded the four soldiers on board, was the last straw for Israel.

Within Israel, it was widely noted in the media and
elsewhere that the high level of aggression from the Gaza Strip had crossed the
line. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s many enemies in the media agreed
with this assessment rather than seeing the problem being a generally peaceful
situation being exploited for partisan reasons. Nor did the opposition parties
take such a stance, though it might have benefited them to have complained in
such a manner.

Another factor is historical precedent in Israel. Although
many governments and some wars had been unpopular with elements of the public
and the political parties, there had never been a serious charge of a decision
to go to war as being made on electoral considerations. That’s because Israelis
know the reality of the country’s strategic situation and the seriousness with
which such choices are made. In a country where so many are serving in the
army, the great majority have served, and so many have children being called up
to duty, war has far more impact than for Western countries for whom conflict
is far away and relatively few people are directly affected. If Israelis felt
that their lives were being risked for someone’s selfish gain, they would not
hesitate to protest loudly.

During the 1982 Lebanon war against the PLO, which many felt
was avoidable, there were large-scale protests. During the 2006 Lebanon war
against Hizballah there was vocal dissent about the decision to go to war. There
has been no such reaction in this case.

There are also many interesting precedents that disprove the
thesis that going to war helps a prime minister’s reelection bid.

--After the 1973 war, which Israel won, discontent with the
Labor Party’s conduct of the campaign was a major factor leading to the end of
that party’s almost three-decade-long rule of the country in 1977.

--In 1982, the decision to go to war in Lebanon and the
resulting casualties ultimately contributed to the retirement of Prime Minister
Menahem Begin and the poorer performance of the Likud Party in the subsequent
elections.

--During the run-up to the 1996 balloting, Prime Minister
Shimon Peres ordered a major offensive in southern Lebanon against Hizballah. He lost the election.

--In 2000, after Prime Minister Ehud Barak led the country
in fighting the Palestinian intifada following the Palestinian Authority’s
rejection of peacemaking, Barak was defeated.

--The 2006 Lebanon war, as noted above, discredited Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who led the Labor Party,
coalition partner of the ruling Kadima party. It certainly did no good for
Kadima either and the party lost the next election.

--Similarly, having conducted an offensive against Hamas in
the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009 that bears a close resemblance to the current one, the
Kadima Party lost an election a few months after the war ended.

Thus, for Netanyahu to believe that going to war was the
best way to assure his own reelection in 2012 runs totally against everything
he knows and Israeli politics has experienced. Indeed, he had personally won
two elections against prime ministers who had not long before that initiated
wars that enjoyed large support from the Israeli public.

There is also, however, an additional factor. Everyone knows
that Netanyahu is going to win. There is no other serious candidate to lead the
country and every poll has shown his party to be in the lead. While the country
is certainly experiencing a variety of problems, the economy is doing
relatively well and nobody has a realistic alternative to Netanyahu’s conduct
of foreign and security policies. At a time when the regional environment is
becoming worse due to the rising power of radical Islamism, few Israelis
perceive some great peace option open for the country.

What makes the charge that Netanyahu was politically
motivated especially interesting is that there is no real evidence to support
such an assertion. This is largely true for all the other accusations thrown
against Israel by so many elements in the Western media, academia, and
political life. Those making such claims, though they are echoed by a tiny and
extreme fringe element within Israel, simply don’t know much about the country
and are so eager to cast it in a negative light that they abandon logic, fairness,
and the honest search for accuracy.